Buffalo Bill Boyhood Home

This house was built by my 3rd great grandfather in 1841 - Laurel Summers. He moved to IA from Indiana in 1840 & married Mary Parkhurst in 1841. This was their first home. The town was then called Parkhurst. Bill Cody never technically never lived in the town of LeClaire. When his family lived in town, Parkhurst had not merged with LeClaire.

Buffalo Bill Boyhood Home
Buffalo Bill Boyhood Home in 2020
Location720 Sheridan Ave., Cody, Wyoming
Coordinates44°31′27″N 109°4′25″W
Built1841
ArchitectIsaac Cody
NRHP reference No.75001906
Added to NRHPJune 05, 1975[1]

Bill Cody was born in a log cabin 5 miles west of Parkhurst/LeClaire. The log cabin sat in a field owned now by the Ehrke family. When I was a kid, you could still see the cabin foundation in the field. Harold Ehrke was very careful not to disturb the foundation while farming.

About 1848, the Cody family bought farm land in Long Grove, Iowa. Issac started building the house & barn on the property. Isaac moved his family to a log cabin on the Wapsi River, but didn't want to leave his family alone while he was away building so moved his family into the Summers home in Parkhurst. They stayed in the home for a little over a year & then moved onto their new farm. Shortly after the move, the oldest boy Samuel, died in a horse accident. That coupled with the gold rush, the family moved to Kansas in 1853.

Buffalo remained friends with my family. He gave several guns & knives to my grandfather, Curtis Rogers. Grandpa wasn't well, & in about 1954 he donated all of that to the Buffalo Bill Museum in LeClaire - most of which was stolen or sold, never to be seen again. There was a big walnut deck originally on the house. My grandfather kept the deck wood & made furniture out of it, which our family still owns. I have several pieces here with me. The last picture we had of Bill Cody was taken in 1917. He came to visit my family while he had his show in Davenport, Iowa. He is standing next to my grandfather with his arm around his shoulder.

Before the house was sold to the railroad, it had been used by some Parkhurst family members as a mercantile store.

Verification can be made through census records & land sale records.

The house was placed at the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy's Cody station to provide an attraction for tourists stopping in Cody on their way to or from Yellowstone National Park. Of necessity, groups had to spend the night at Cody, in the railroad's Burlington Inn next to the station, about two miles from town. The house was meant to provide the travelers with a diversion that would not require a trip into town. By 1947 the rail tour business was declining and the Burlington Inn was to be demolished. The Cody House was given to the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association and moved to its final location at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody. The house was again moved in 1969 when the museum moved into the Buffalo Bill Historical Center across the street from the old museum. The house is the oldest structure in the town of Cody, and may be the oldest building in Wyoming.[2]

The two-story frame house has two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. A lean-to kitchen addition to the rear did not make the journey from Iowa to Wyoming. The house is constructed of sawn lumber with larger hand-hewn timbers.[2]

The Cody House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[1]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. Frost, Ned (January 28, 1974). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination: Buffalo Bill Boyhood Home". National Park Service. Retrieved 2009-07-15.


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